All Forum Posts by: Rachel Stewart

@Savannah Arroyo I've done a number of websites for other investors who I've connected with on BiggerPockets! I focus on websites that are branded to your business designed to pop. I also only work on platforms that are self service, so you can maintain them without having to pay a developer every time you want to update pictures or small things. Let me know if you want to see our portfolio! Good Luck!

@Lyndon Timbang sorry for the late response. It really varies.  Generally (and my personal thought process) the more you want (bigger, complex) the more likely your developer will want to do a Time and Materials contract. If you want something basic the less risk to them and the easier it is to do a fixed bid. For reference, a basic website on an all in one platform, our labor base rate is $250. In my experience, that's on the low side of average for on-shore design and development work. For my day job, I'm an analytics consultant so I've got a lot of experience with consulting pricing and contract terms. Reach out to me if you ever want a second set of eyes on a freelancing gig. Good Luck! 

@Lyndon Timbang I am a freelance web developer (and real estate investor) I can answer the question from the other side, I don't usually find my work on UpWork or Fiverr mostly because the competition is too crazy and I find myself putting time into proposals just to be outbid by someone overseas. You CAN find great work on there, but you'll probably have a lot of proposals to sift through and have to be ready to explain what you want very clearly.

As others have said, smaller projects and clear expectations will yield the best results. 

Let me know if you want to see any of my design portfolio, I do a lot of work for wholesalers and developers. 

Hi @Samuel Cardenas ! Great to see a fellow Chicagoan on the forums. I do website development, and I would suggest a Wordpress website or an all-in-one platform like WIX, depending on your budget and needs. A lot of people around here set up Carrot sites, which is another way to go.

I think if you're looking to list your properties, I would stick to the main outlets like Zillow and Apartments.com and then surface them up through your website via an iframe/plugin if possible. That way you don't have to worry about maintaining it in multiple places and you can take advantage of their larger audience. 

Let me know if you want someone to bounce ideas off of! 

I do web site development as a side gig, but more from a design and UI/UX perspective because now a days it's so easy for people to set up their own, I usually start with a free 20 minute walk through on how to use Wordpress or WIX so people know how easy it is to do themselves. 

For most clients I tell people your website should be a branding tool not your client management tool, your lead generation, your photo repository etc. If you're big enough you need to really build your own management system you should be at the size you can pay consultants $150/hr to build it.  

There are a lot of plug-ins for both wordpress and WIX that do bookings but I don't know if I'd recommend really trying to bypass the big dogs. 

Is your end goal to have their emails in a CRM? Have you looked into https://www.guesty.com/ Not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but looks like it could be an option. 

Hey @Nick Rutkowski

As someone who does website development as a side gig and analytics consulting as my day job, I have a little bit of a different take than  @Jerryll Noorden  

First, go listen to this podcast - 

BiggerPockets Podcast 259: Old-School Investing Wisdom from 60+ Years with Mike Anderson. 

Mike Anderson is a hugely successful investor and he talks about how he went through the exact scenario of "pissing someone off" but he stuck with it (respectfully) and it paid off. Yes, don't piss people off but don't always take no for an answer either. Find a balance. 

On the digital front - 

Yes, SEO is powerful and you should absolutely have a web presence and when you do, you should absolutely spend time and resources on your SEO. But sometimes the point of all of this is that the opportunity can lie where the big guys are over optimized. Use your web presence to brand yourself and legitimize your business. 

An ideal workflow for something like this might be:

Send nicely branded mailer with your website that's not too slimy salesy but piques 50 people's attention --> 50 people go to your website (directly, because it's on your mailer) and go "wow this guy looks like a professional" --> 20 contact you through your super easy to use online form - a lot of people get nervous to call someone and talk about something scary like selling their house but filling out an online form is low risk for them.  --> lead goes directly to your email and you're able to follow up quickly and close the deal.  This way, you used your mailers to bring leads, but your web presence to convert. 

The problem with SEO is it takes either time or $$ (often both) to rank on the first page, it's a great goal to have but don't let it be this hill you have to climb before you get deals. 

SO WHY NOT DO BOTH. You're going to get the highest quality leads from the highest quality inputs. People want to do business with people who they genuinely connect with. If you can connect with people better through online channels do that, if you can connect with people better through mailers then do that. 

Just my take. Hope it helps and good luck!

Hey @Nick Naik I do web development so SEO/Digital marketing is not my exact niche but I think you're going to have a pretty big hill to climb. I usually suggest to my clients that they use their web presence as a way to legitimize/brand their business rather than drive leads. At the end of the day, your leg work has to come in somewhere - either you're hustling to drive people to your website (handing out cards, connecting with people and telling them to check you out etc.) or you're hustling on the "back-end" to get your website ranking high enough that people find it organically. 

What you can do: 

Look into SEO & maybe hire someone to help you out with it, at first glance, it's not overly niche so you'll have a hard time ranking. Try and make it more specific to ATL? There are ways you can research what people are searching and target those people. 

Pay for leads - run a ad campaign on something like Google Ads or Facebook (if you don't have a facebook page for your business, I highly suggest it. 

In general, if you're using your website as your primary way to drive leads this is one of the few instances I tell my clients they might want to look into a service that manages your SEO and digital management for you. Unfortunately, they can be $$. 

 P.S. I'd double check with who set up your website because the display URL is http://box2139.temp.domains/~getcasha/ which is not going to help your ranking. 

Good Luck! The hardest part is getting started!

Hi @Brandon Sok! I do website design as a side gig and I often recommend all in one platforms (like WIX) for something like this. It sounds like you basically want a landing page with some extra call-to-action options such as filling out an application or getting into contact with you. WordPress is good too it's kind of the OG it was originally meant for blogging so sometimes you'll see wordpress sites that look a little too much like a blog. It's not quite as easy as the all in ones, but it's more flexible. The other thing you have to consider is premium themes can start to get $$$. 

For reference I can build and set up a full WIX site in about 10 hours complete with testing and email set up and the same thing would take 20-40 hours for the same look and feel on Wordpress. 

Both are relatively easy for someone managing their website themselves (adding pictures, changing wording etc.), but I would suggest an all-in one every time to someone without a technical background. 

One other note, IMO you want to make sure YOU own your website and any of the ranking SEO work that goes into it. If you choose one and then later decide you want to move platforms, it's possible to port everything over. There are some services out there that make it very hard or impossible to port it over if you decide to change. Ideally, your website is an asset, IP that you own, not a liability that you pay someone else for. 

@Tanisha Costello

Hi! I do website development for REI and to help fund my own investments. I think it's a great idea to have some web presence. Maybe it's the millennial in me, but I would have a hard time trusting a business without a basic website.

Don’t worry TOO much about the name because you could always rebrand, buy a new domain and repoint your website. Domain names are usually like $10-$20/yr. Where you’ll pay is your web hosting, even then you shouldn’t be paying more than $200ish a year so if you really regretted you could start from scratch without too much effort.

I think you’re on the right track in thinking of your branding, it’s so important!

I am not a lawyer but when I was looking into it in Illinois I found three steps helpful:

• 1) Check with your states secretary of state they have online tools to search their databases 
• 2) Check the DBAs (Doing business as) this is where a business or partnership takes on a separate/assumed business name.  
• 3) US Trademark Office the USPTO also has their own database checker so you can see that no one has trademarked your name or something too similar. 

While you're checking these things, you might as well check for a domain name, in case in the future you want to create a website. Once I had a client that had been doing business for a while under their name and when we went to purchase the domain name it wasn't available. Something to keep in mind.